Opinions on Nero for burning

[44echo]

I see alot of people say don't use Nero. Is it because they've become an all-in-one program or are there other reasons? I'm only interested in hearing opinions of the Burning Rom. I don't use the other stuff. I recall hearing that Nero was a good burning program years ago. Has that changed or do people say "Nero sucks" because Nero Vision sucks, their MPEG encoder sucks, etc and it all gets lumped together as "Nero sucks"?

What is your opinion of Nero Burning Rom? I'm still using V6.something.

[freebird73717]

The last version of nero I used was version 6. It worked okay for me. I only used the burning rom. I never had any problems with it. From what I've read nero started going downhill after version 6.

When Imgburn came out I started using that for my dvd burning. Never looked back. Lite on system resources and just works.

I use burnaware free for audio cds.

[bbanderic]

I think Nero works fine for single layer DVD's, both video and data, and CD's. It chokes badly on dual layer DVD's.

ImgBurn is tops for all DVD burning though so I don't really see a reason to use anything else.

[Ai Haibara]

A lot of people are using Nero to create their video DVDs for them (take 'any'/multiple video sources, and encode them all to a video DVD with a menu the user can customize). Imgburn can't do that, if that's what you're looking for. But you can always create a DVD-Video disc using programs like FAVC, DVD Flick, or the commercial ConvertXtoDVD, and burn the disc those create with Imgburn.

[smitbret]

I use Imageburn for for the majority of my burning now, but I still use Nero (v9, currently) when burning to mulitple drives and for other things that Imgburn just doesn't do. Quite frankly, I don't have any problem with either, but ImgBurn is lighter on system resources and I remember a discussion on this forum a few years ago and it was brought up that Nero doesn't burn DVDs that comply with redundancy standards or something like that. I also remeber reading that Nero had a problem with the layer marker on DL DVDs. Not sure whether it was true or if Nero has addressed these issues in later versions, but it was enough to get me to use ImgBurn where practical and I still do. I've never had a problem with either, though.

[fritzi93]

Nero is a poor choice for burning DVD-Video.

The problem is this: Even if your disc is properly authored with a 32k gap between *.IFOs and *.BUPs, Nero will run them together. Since each ECC block is 16 sectors long (32K), leaving a gap ensures that a problem on the disc which makes it impossible to read the IFO will not also take out the BUP. (BUPs are IFO backups).

Nero also has a history of not coexisting well with other burning programs. I once had a devil of a time with Nero 6, which I unadvisedly installed on a machine with RecordNow already on it. Screwed them both up and TMPGEncDVDauthor's burning function to boot. Roxio is another one Nero has conflicted with.

Uninstalling Nero is chancy as well. Best to use the Nero clean tool, available on their website and MajorGeeks, et. al. Why do you think they need a clean tool, hmmm? Because it puts low level hooks into your registry (upper and lower filters) that may require manual removal, despite using the tool.

Now, it may be that some of the above has been fixed, I dunno. I did like most of the BurningRom functions, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I still use RecordNow, as well as ImgBurn. For functions neither of those two have, there's CDBurnerXP, which is free and works fine.

One thing's certain: Nero is like Topsy, it just growed. It was already getting bloated with v.6.

[jman98]

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner here! fritzi93 explained the best reason why you should NEVER use Nero for DVD burning. Nero deliberately ruins the entire reason that BUPs exist in the first place. The deliberate and completely unnecessary destruction of redundancy is why you should NEVER use Nero.

As bbanderic mentions, Nero had problems in the past with DL media and led to a lot of coasters being burned. It's just not worth the risk.

I use Nero sometimes, but ONLY for burning CD audio and data discs (DVD and CD). Mostly I use ImgBurn for data disc burning, but I admit to using Nero sometimes for that. Nero is a good tool for burning CD audio though.

With regards to frizi93's post, Roxio is the biggest piece of excrement burning program I've ever seen in my life. Nero has it's flaws for sure, but Roxio is worse, much worse, in my opinion.

[redwudz]

I quit using Nero a couple of years ago when ImgBurn came out. I only used Nero Burning ROM anyway. If you want or need all that other stuff, then go ahead and install Nero. According to Nero Inc., Nero Nine needs:

*1.5 GB hard drive space for a typical installation of all components

I don't need it taking up space on my drives.

The last version of Nero I really liked was 5.5, from there it was downhill, IMO.

[fritzi93]

I should clarify:

A buggered disc may take out both IFOs and BUPs anyway. But the way Nero writes them, the BUPs will *automatically* be unreadable IF the IFOs are unreadable. That defeats the purpose of having BUPs at all.

As to Roxio, never used it. But it and Nero are notoriously incompatible. [shrugs]

Yikes, the latest Nero takes up 1.5 GB?!! :P

[bbanderic]

Nero is a poor choice for burning DVD-Video.

The problem is this: Even if your disc is properly authored with a 32k gap between *.IFOs and *.BUPs, Nero will run them together. Since each ECC block is 16 sectors long (32K), leaving a gap ensures that a problem on the disc which makes it impossible to read the IFO will not also take out the BUP. (BUPs are IFO backups).

I've heard of this claim before but I've never seen evidence of this fact, how can you tell that Nero runs the IFO and BUPs together?

[fritzi93]

Here's one page by r0lz and Blutach:

http://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/pgcedit/third_party/blutach/Burning%20With%20PgcEdit.htm

Another by Blutach:

http://forum.digital-digest.com/printthread.php?t=45025

You can find a bunch more by searching the site for "32k". I chose the two above by r0lz (author of PgcEdit) and Blutach because of their well-known credibility. If they don't know what they're talking about, then I just dunno.

[Reelman472]

fritzi93,

I don't know anything about 32k gaps and what it has to do with making a good dvd. I do know that I've been using Nero since version 1 along with dvd shrink to reauthor dvds and I don't seem to be experiencing all these "bad" burns . I have a whole library of Nero dvd's that play on all my players and all my friends players and all my friends friends players and they even play on Gods dvd player. The very same dvds have been re-ripped, re-burned, shrunk, expanded, and converted over and over. The only real issue with Nero is the fact you have to pay for it. All the posts recommending other burning software haven't used Nero since version 6. The biggest problem people have with bad burns is the media not the software.

Reelman472

[usually_quiet]

I have been using Verbatim DVD-R 16X exclusively for the past 3 years. Mostly its been made in Taiwan, and the MIT media has had the same media code for those 3 years. The difference isn't isn't really statistically significant, because bad burns have been few, but most of them happened while I was using Nero Express 6. I have had only 1 failure since switching to ImgBurn a year and a half ago, and I was burning MIT media at the time.

My decison to use ImgBurn was unrelated to the cost of either software. My copy of Nero Express was also free. It came with my burner. It's strictly a matter of which program is better. While both programs are easy to use, and both work reasonably well with my burner and media, ImgBurn complies with the DVD spec. That's my criteria for better.

[VegasBud]

I've heard of this claim before but I've never seen evidence of this fact, how can you tell that Nero runs the IFO and BUPs together?

It isn't very difficult to test it yourself, and see the results with your own eyes.

1) Get a set of test files by using "Re-author" in DvdShrink to get a "movie only" backup. Make sure "Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders" is checked in the "Backup DVD" dialog box.

2) Burn the VIDEO_TS - AUDIO_TS structure to a dvd with nero.

3) Start DvdDecrypter, press F6 to enable debug mode, and insert the disk you just burned. In the log window, it will show the LBA range used for each file.

4) Subtract the start LBA of VIDEO_TS.IFO from the start LBA of VIDEO_TS.BUP.
If the number you get is less than 16, nero isn't using 32k gaps.

If you do the same test with ImgBurn, there will be 32k gaps.

[VegasBud]

Reelman472,

Dvds use Error Correcting Code (ECC) to offset read/write errors. While the video/audio part of a dvd-video disk doesn't have to be "bit perfect" to work reasonably well, IFO files control the playback, and any bit errors can be critical (the disk doesn't work right), which is why there is redundant backup (in the form of BUP files) for all the IFOs. ECC works in blocks of 16 sectors (32k bytes). If an IFO and its' associated BUP are in different ECC blocks, one or the other is likely to survive intact. If the IFO and BUP are in the same ECC block, and there is more damage to the block than ECC can correct, both files are lost...and the dvd won't play correctly.

More concisely, if there are 32k gaps on a dvd, you have two levels of failure protection. If there aren't 32k gaps, you only have one level of failure protection.

An additional problem with nero is that it uses an algorithm for placing the layer break (on dual layer media) instead of letting the user decide. The quality of a layer break is directly tied to the viewing experience. While algorithms have a useful purpose, they are a poor substitute for tasks better suited to the human eye and mind.

[redwudz]

All the posts recommending other burning software haven't used Nero since version 6. The biggest problem people have with bad burns is the media not the software.

I have used other versions of Nero, up to Nero 8 and I didn't see any improvements, just more bloat. But, as mentioned, it does do other things besides burning. But burning is more important to me and Nero doesn't do it near as well as ImgBurn, IMO

More importantly, Nero could have easily fixed both issues that have been mentioned, but they chose not to.

I would agree that bad media is a major problem, but Nero is what is being discussed here.

[MysticE]

A lot of people are using Nero to create their video DVDs for them (take 'any'/multiple video sources, and encode them all to a video DVD with a menu the user can customize). Imgburn can't do that, if that's what you're looking for. But you can always create a DVD-Video disc using programs like FAVC, DVD Flick, or the commercial ConvertXtoDVD, and burn the disc those create with Imgburn.

I like and use Nero 7 quite a bit (I like all it's audio 'toys'), but I don't even remember what Burning Rom looks like... never use it. Any projects I make are burned to disc with ImgBurn. I make Promo DVDs about twice a month with Nero Vision. The Text effects (used to announce specials and upcoming events) and video transitions (nice for moving from a music video to a section of Shadow Dancers) are quite varied and work well. And although the opposite is often said when I use DVD compliant mpeg-2 NV never re-encodes, except for those short sections where the text and transitions appear.

Although NV is always maligned, free apps like those mentioned are fine for simple conversions but they don't approach the full scope of what NV can do.

[fritzi93]

VegasBud, you explained it much better than I did. :P

Well, Nero's okay, I don't want to be too vehement in my criticism. But it's the few dumb nagging shortcomings that bug me about it. And the sheer size of it, of course. On my HTPC, the only program that begins to approach it is TotalMedia3, which is too damn big also.

[44echo]

Thank you all for your input. Very insightful, as always.